For the past several years, substantial attention has been directed to the field of intravascular ultrasonic imaging systems. Such systems generally include an imaging catheter assembly, a motor drive unit and an imaging subsystem. The imaging catheter assembly is coupled to the motor drive unit, and the motor drive unit is coupled to the imaging subsystem. An imaging transducer is provided within a distal extremity of the catheter assembly and is electronically coupled to the imaging subsystem via the motor drive unit. Conventional imaging subsystems generally include a computer-based image processing system and a display. Thus, when the distal extremity of the catheter assembly is inserted, for example, into a body lumen such as a coronary vessel, an image of an interior surface and/or the structures comprising a wall of the lumen may be depicted on the display. This enables physicians to gain valuable information regarding, for example, occlusions that may exist within, for example, coronary vessels due to the build-up of atherosclerotic plague.
While intravascular ultrasonic imaging systems are very valuable tools to physicians, the use of such systems is often quite complicated and non-intuitive. One reason for this is that the control panels of such systems are not laid out in an intuitive manner. Indeed, conventional control panels are often cluttered with buttons, potentiometers, track balls, and other devices that are not well organized and, as a result, substantial training is often required to educate imaging personnel with regard to even basic imaging functions that are performed by such systems.
Accordingly, it is believed that those skilled in the art would find an innovative control panel with improved ergonomic features and/or an intuitive control group layout to be quite useful.
In one innovative aspect, the present invention is directed to an innovative control panel for an intravascular ultrasonic imaging system. The control panel preferably has a centrally located track ball, or other pointing device, and a plurality of subsystem control groups that are arranged around the pointing device in an intuitive manner.
For example, in one preferred embodiment, a plurality of imaging mode selection buttons are provided within a region of the control panel just forward of the pointing device and within a region of the control panel that is generally below a display screen of the imaging system. The imaging mode selection buttons preferably are arranged from left to right in order of anticipated use and/or in order of anticipated frequency of use.
Similarly, in another preferred embodiment, an imaging initiation button, record button and pullback button are arranged in a linear fashion adjacent one side of the pointing device. For example, in a presently preferred embodiment, the image initiation, record and pullback buttons are located directly to the left of the pointing device and are arranged in anticipated order of use from a forward region of the control panel to a rearward region of the control panel. It will be appreciated that the term xe2x80x9cforward,xe2x80x9d as used herein, refers to a location generally further away from a user of the system, whereas the term xe2x80x9crearwardxe2x80x9d is meant to denote a location closer to a user of the system. Thus, when initiating an imaging sequence, a user of a system in accordance with the present invention may reach out to depress the image initiation button and, upon withdrawing his or her hand or arm, easily depress the record button and, if desired, the pullback button.
In still other innovative embodiments, the pointing device is located in a region between an image processing control group and an image analysis control group. The image processing control group may comprise, for example, a depth of field or xe2x80x9czoomxe2x80x9d control knob and a plurality of gain control devices including a master gain control knob, a plurality of time gain control potentiometers and a time gain control (TGC) on/off switch. The image analysis control group may comprise, for example, a trace assist button, a bookmark button, a print button and a jog shuttle control assembly including a jog shuttle knob, play button, stop button and pause button.
In a further innovative aspect, the control console may include a pop-out keyboard. Thus, a control panel in accordance with the present invention may take advantage of a relatively large keyboard without limiting to any significant degree the functionality of the control panel.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved control panel for use with ultrasonic imaging systems.
It also is an object of the present invention to provide a control panel having improved ergonomic characteristics and an intuitive control group layout such that minimal training is required to operate the controls of the control panel.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from consideration of the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.